Giselle Ross on how she was told her two children had been stabbed to death

Aug 3 2008 By Marion Scott

A MOTHER has told how her "world ended" the day her two beloved sons were found stabbed to death in a car.

Speaking for the first time, Giselle Ross revealed how police refused to help at first when she reported Paul, six, and Jay, two, missing.

Officers said she would have to wait 24 hours for the boys to be considered officially missing. But after six hours of searching in vain, she got a call from CID officers saying they had found a car with two bodies in it.

She said: "I kept asking the police what had happened to my boys but to this day, I still don't know how they died or why.

"All I know is that my world ended that day."

In a heartbreaking interview, Giselle, 41, also revealed how:

There had been no separation from or row with the boys' father.

She buried the boys in the same coffin in their favourite Spider-man and Bob the Builder pyjamas.

She hasn't returned to her house since the youngsters died - even leaving their last breakfast on the table.

Her only comfort is a gold medallion she has had carved with the names of her beloved sons.

The boys were found in the car at a beauty spot at the Campsie Fells, near Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire, after a day out on May 3.

Their father, Ashok Kalyanjee, 45, was charged with their murder last month after being discharged from hospital after weeks receiving treatment for burns.

Recalling the day the boys died, Giselle, of Royston, Glasgow, said: "I started to get worried when they did not come back and I knew I had to go and get help from the police. I went to Stewart Street police station and asked them to start searching for the children.

"Officers there told me that I had to wait for 24 hours for the boys to be considered officially missing.

"And so my sister Katie and I began searching everywhere we could think of ourselves.

"In those terrible hours, I knew in my heart something bad had happened to my babies.

"After six hours searching the streets, and everywhere else I could think of, I got a phone call from the police telling me to go to the very station where I'd already asked for help.

"CID officers told me that they'd found a car with two bodies."

Giselle met Indian-born Kalyanjee when he worked at the Royston Post Office and they began seeing each other for meals and evenings out almost 10 years ago.

Giselle dismissed reports that the couple had separated before the boys' tragic deaths.

She said: "We were happy together and Ash was good to the boys.

"Gossips have said we must have fallen out over access to the children or over money.

"But that's just not true. Things were the way they always were between us.

"He saw the boys every day of their lives. There was no sign that anything was wrong. If there had been, I never would have allowed the boys to go with him that day. I dressed them in their clothes, and saw them off."

After police told Giselle that they thought they had found Paul and Jay's dead bodies, she had to identify them in a Glasgow mortuary.

She said: "I knew I had to go and do it myself.

"I didn't want to put my father or my sisters through that because they loved the boys so much too.

"My two oldest brothers went with me, but no one could have prepared me for what I saw.

"While Jay was like a perfect little porcelain doll, I could see the absolute terror on Paul's face. He looked as if he'd aged 10 years.

"He wasn't the Paul I last saw and kissed goodbye."

Giselle bravely arranged the funeral service for the boys and chose a white coffin in which they would be buried together. She now spends every day lovingly tending the boys' grave in Riddrie cemetery.

The boys were buried in each other's arms, Paul in his Spider-man pyjamas and Jay in his Bob the Builder top and trousers.

In the coffin with them were floral wreaths in the shape of the same favourite characters.

The ashes of their grandmother Jean, who died in January, are buried with them. Giselle said: "It's a huge comfort, knowing they're all in there together.

"Paul's arm is around his little brother. I know they'll all look after each other.

"If I could take a miracle pill to join them, I would. My babies were my life.

"I lived for them, and can't imagine the rest of my life without them."

Days after the funeral, Giselle had a medallion made to commemorate the short lives of her boys.

She said: "I wanted something that I could carry with me always.

"I wear it close to my heart and every time I pass a mirror, I can see their names shining out at me.

"I'll never take this medallion off. It's just too precious a reminder for me of two of the most beautiful little boys in the world."

Giselle has been unable to confront the daunting prospect of returning to the home where she so lovingly cared for her boys.

She said: "I haven't been able to face going back there.

"The place is just as I left it on May 3, with the boys' pyjamas lying where they left them and the breakfast things still sitting out.

"But I couldn't go back there because it would be too painful a reminder of everything I've lost.

"There were photographs and toys everywhere you looked.

"I couldn't bear to look at those things now. My brothers had to go and clear the house for me and I've been staying with my family until I can face what happens next.

"I've kept some precious things for a memory treasure chest - Jay's Bob the Builder hat and hammer and Paul's Spider-man costumes and the Nintendo he loved."

Giselle also wept openly when she recalled how her boys had handled the news of their granny's death four months before their own.

Giselle said: "I told Paul that his granny was a star in heaven now, and he used to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her every night.

"It was his way of coping with her death.

"But Jay used to point to the star and say that he was going to be beside granny in the sky. I can't believe his simple words have come true."

Giselle said that despite crying on his first day at Royston Primary School, Paul ended up loving his lessons and he had hated even being on holiday from school.

She said: "Paul loved learning and he was a very clever boy.

"I was terrified that he would have had difficulty making friends because he was so shy. But I was overwhelmed when I discovered just how popular he was and that he had lots of friends.

"His whole life just revolved around his family, his school and Spider-man."

'It's a huge comfort to know they will always be together. Paul has his arm around his brother.. they can look after each other'

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